How can I expose my localhost server for webhooks during development without third part services like ngrok?
I was watching this video on how to create a simple telegram bot and they have used ngrok to expose their localhost server to the internet for webhooks. I am trying to understand what problem ngrok and other services like this do.
How hard is it to expose your localhost server to the internet without third party services like ngrok and what are the disadvantages of doing that yourself?
Use NAT to expose a local server to the public internet. Your router should have a UI where you can map an external WAN port to a port on an internal machine.
It's straight forward to configure. The main disadvantage is that (unless you have purchased a static IP from your ISP) your WAN IP address will change occassionally. Meaning, you can't simply share/publish the public IP for your local dev server as it will change.